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One of baseball's best weapons ripe for a comeback

Posted: Thursday, May 10, 2001

By Maury WillsThe Sporting News

The stolen base is a fantastic offensive weapon that seems to have gone by the wayside. I don't think there is any secret why: because of the long ball. It's Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa making the home run so popular.

If you are a manager now, you are playing for the big inning, not for a run here or a run there. You've got a livelier ball, so the fashionable thing is to go for the home run.

But the stolen base still can be a weapon.

The stolen base -- baserunning in general -- is the only part of the game that does not go into slumps. Think about it: Hitting has slumps. Pitching and fielding have slumps. Baserunning always will be there for you. Once you know baserunning, once you really understand it, you can rely on it. I feel that most one-run ball games are won or lost because of outstanding baserunning or boneheaded baserunning. Somewhere between the first and last inning of a tight game, a baserunning play is going to decide it.

Baserunning is down now, but if you look at baseball, the history and trends, you see that every so often, every X amount of years, someone comes along and changes the game. I did that in the early '60s. If you look at that time, the game was much the same as it is now -- a lot of sluggers, a lot of home runs. The stolen base was not a big thing. My first year leading the league was in 1960, and the year before that, Willie Mays led the league in steals with 27 stolen bases. Now it has gone back to that way.

You have to understand, there was a reason for the change. In the 1950s there were a lot of small parks. In the '60s, the new, larger parks started coming in. It happened in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and St. Louis. The old parks had short fences, so it was easy to hit home runs.

The Dodgers moved to Dodger Stadium in 1962, and we went from a field that was 250 feet down the line (in left field) to one that was 330 feet. So we had to change our thinking. The Dodgers wanted to use speed. It's not a coincidence that in 1961 I stole 35 bases, then in 1962, in the new stadium, I stole 104. We stole twice as many bases in 1962 as the next team on the list. We made the game into a speed game.

Of course, now stadiums have gone the other way. They're smaller now. It's easier to hit home runs. Guys are afraid to go for stolen bases. It's easier to wait on home runs.

That's a big part of baserunning -- fear. You can't have fear. If you look at the kind of guys who make great basestealers -- guys like Rickey Henderson -- one thing they have in common is that they are arrogant. I don't think enough guys are arrogant that way anymore -- arrogant on the field. They may be arrogant off the field but not in the game. That's where being arrogant is good for you. A lot of players don't want to exert themselves, and a lot of times, stealing bases requires you to exert yourself, physically and mentally.

Young guys in the minors don't think they will get to be millionaires by stealing bases. Players don't want to get their uniforms dirty. When a game is over, you are supposed to know you just played a game. You are not supposed to want to go dancing. If you are really into the game, you should be a little tired.

There are a lot of people who don't see eye-to-eye with the way Henderson thinks and acts, his attitude and what they think his disposition is. But he has the perfect temperament for a basestealer. He has that outstanding speed and quickness, but a lot of players have that -- a lot more than are aware of it. Henderson has the disposition for it. That's missing today.

You have to eliminate any fear of failing if you are going to be a basestealer. You have to be able to steal a base when everybody in the ballpark knows you are going. You have to be willing to be thrown out in front of 50,000 people and, even worse, on TV.

I remember in September 1962 I had 96 stolen bases, tied with Ty Cobb for most ever. I was on first base at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis with Larry Jackson on the mound. Jackson was one of the toughest pitchers for me to steal off, though I would never admit it at the time. I did not want him to know I thought he was tough.

I was on first, and Jackson did not want me to break the record. He threw over to first 16 consecutive times. After the 16th time, I knew he was going home, so I took off for second. And made it. I just could read him. I could read anybody. There was something about every pitcher -- his legs, his arms, his head -- something that told me what he was going to

I never bought into this first-move stuff. I mean, there are guys, I will watch them and they will get a great jump and steal the base easily.

Then they come back to the dugout, and I will say, 'Wow, that was a great jump. What was the key?' And they'll say, 'What do you mean? I just went on the first move.' First move? That's crazy. What if he throws over? You're out. But that's popular thinking today. I never used the first move. That's guessing. It's 50-50. That's no good.

Today, pitching coaches and people who do the training are a little bit more sophisticated as far as knowing what we look for because of stories like this and reporters asking so many questions. We give away little things trying to help somebody with a story, and over the years, these things get out. So maybe I should not give any more away. It's all these thing that are combining to make stolen bases keep going down.

This article published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Thursday, May 10, 2001.